The Rose Café

by John Hanson Mitchell

  One of the regular species that I had to clean was the red-scaled rascasse. Mistakenly termed scorpion fish in English, it is in fact a different species altogether and a standard ingredient of bouillabaisse, although it is also grilled and sometimes baked separately. The rascasse has a nasty ridge of toxic spines on its dorsal fins. I had been warned by Vincenzo when I first began cutting fish not to get pricked by them, but no matter how careful I was, at some point every time I cleaned fish, I would get stuck. My fingers would swell and ache for a day or so, and then, as soon as I recovered, I would get stung again.

  That Friday afternoon I carried the mess of fish to the rocks at the harbor in a fruit basket and began scaling and gutting them, tipping the offal into the clear waters. Within a minute I began to see dark forms coming in to feed on the remains.

  Just as I was finishing up and cleaning the knives, Marie joined me, and we sat watching the underwater life crawl, dart, or float out from the obscure crevices and depths to feed on the fish innards.

  As we watched the marine life, she leaned closer to me and at one point hooked her arm over my knee to hold herself up. Where I had come from, this would have been a subtly intimate gesture on her part, but knowing Marie, I was not sure it meant anything. The fact is, though, I also knew—from the source—that there was trouble between Chrétien and Marie. He had accused her of too much flirtation and knew he was in stiff competition with the older serious womanizers lurking every evening around the card table, including André.

  But Marie herself was not without guile or her own defenses.

  The dentist named Eugène, who was still in residence, seemed to have developed an infatuation with Marie. He was much older, perhaps thirty-five or forty to her mere eighteen years, but he was clearly taken; you could see his eyes following her when she tripped across the terrace to select her table in the shade. He would watch as she arranged herself to wait for the delivery of her citron pressé. He watched as she exited with her bathing apparel, headed for her place on the rocks. Once or twice, I noticed that when she was sunbathing, he would find an excuse to stroll out the path beyond the restaurant with his little dog, Piti, his hands clasped behind his back. He would circle the cove and select a spot under the Genoese watchtower. I realized later that he could probably see her from across the cove stretched out topless in the hot light.

  Eugène liked me, too, and would sometimes corner me and tell me about his life in Lyon. He would describe in loving detail the antics of his companion, Piti, his custom of rising early, and his happy weekends with her in the parks and how much she loved to chase balls. He was fond of eating, and like Herr Komandante, would arrive early and sit with an aperitif, waiting for his soup, watching for the grand entrance of Marie. Sometimes he would manage to have a few words with her at the bar, although she was often surrounded at these times by other adoring males.

  One day I saw them walking together out toward the tower. Piti was prancing ahead of them, tail on high. Eugène was carrying himself stiffly and formally, and Marie was stepping along with her deerlike, balletic walk, shoulders back, her hips swaying subtly. They were gone for two hours or more, and when they came back she had her hand crooked in his arm. He held himself uncomfortably, his left arm half-raised across his lower chest and repressing a proud smile, as if he had just won an important athletic victory and was approaching an adoring public.

  Marie was free with her hands and body; she would often reach out and touch you while she prattled on, she was not averse to squeezing past you in a doorway, and she would sometimes lean close and press her breasts against your arm if she was looking at something over your shoulder. But none of this meant that she was particularly attracted to you, she just liked to be appreciated—she liked to be liked. This was the behavior that enraged Chrétien, who would fly into fits of jealousy and sometimes corner me in the kitchen and hold forth confidentially about her loose behavior, not to mention her stiff defenses against his passionate advances.

  Out on the island below the tower, she had probably laughed at something Eugène said and leaned her moplike head against his shoulder; maybe she had tousled his hair or grabbed his knee to make a point. She would often take the arm of men and women when she walked, but in his mind, this freedom must have been layered with great meaning. He actually believed she favored him, and he must have invited her to join him at dinner that evening, and she must have accepted, because we were instructed to lay two settings at the dentist’s table in the corner.

  Eugène arrived early, as was his custom, and instructed Piti to lie down under the table. He had washed and put on a fresh shirt, one of his new ones—barely out of the box, I would say. He wore pressed slacks and leather sandals over neat brown socks, and he sat down complacently for once, with an almost self-satisfied look. Chrétien brought him his usual kir, not suspecting that Monsieur le Dentiste was to dine that evening with his own girlfriend. Eugène was ever so gracious with Chrétien that evening, joking and free, and not quite understanding, or perhaps unconsciously suppressing the fact, that Chrétien and Marie were a couple (more or less).

  A group had gathered at the bar: Maggs, a man from the town named Pierre, and a young woman named Circe, who had worked as a waitress at the café the season before. They were collected in a loose circle, laughing and throwing back their heads like barking dogs. And then, in the doorway, Marie made her entrance.

  As she often would do, she moved in out of the light and stood framed by the door for a second, waiting for everyone to look up and notice. She wore her green capri pants, a tight black blouse with deep décolletage, silver earrings, and many silver necklaces and bracelets. As if in surprise, she spotted the troupe of her friends, and made for them, light-footed. Halfway across the room, she saw the dentist.

  “Oh là,” she said, “Eugène, mon ami, comment vas tu?” and detoured toward his table.

  He rose to greet her, but before he had even straightened himself, she reached the table, leaned across, kissed him on each cheek, and carried on to the bar.

  I saw the sunbeam fade from his face. He sat down, busied himself with his drink, broke a morsel of bread from the basket and fed it to Piti, and then spent the next few minutes pretending not to notice the happy throng at the bar.

  Chrétien served him his dinner not ever suspecting the assignation so closely missed.

  Along with many of the other men around the café, I had also seen le Baron eyeing Marie. One night he dropped out of the card game and joined her at the bar. Chrétien was still serving the last diners, but he seemed to make a point of finding odd jobs for himself around the counter, glancing over frequently at their little tête-à-tête. Le Baron’s searchlight eyes were shining more brightly that evening, I thought, and he was fixing Marie with that lowered-head stare he assumed whenever he spoke with anyone who interested him.

  Out on the rocks that Friday afternoon I asked Marie if she knew le Baron. “I saw him talking to you the other night,” I said.

  “You think he is a big criminal, don’t you? Chrétien told me that.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve heard that from one source, but Micheline says he’s from a rich coal mining family in Belgium. An industrialist or something. Lots of money.”

  “I do not trust him either,” she said. “I caught him looking me over. He makes me nervous.”

  “I think he just likes younger people,” I said. “He engaged me in conversation one evening, asked me all about New York. He looked at me the same way.”

  “He claims to know of my mother and father. Or at least their writing,” she said.

  “What does he think?”

  “I don’t think he likes their politics very much.”

  I told her I thought it strange to have a type like him out here in the middle of nowhere. “If he were in Nice, or Cannes, you wouldn’t think twice,” I said. “But out here—out in the maquis, with all those feral pigs and peasants.”

  “Micheline told me there is a
strange, one-eyed guard out on his property. A mute who only grunts at people and limps. Also a big dog. A mastiff,” she said.

  She leaned over my knee again as a shadowy form spirited out from a crevice and disappeared with some fish innards—an octopus, I think.

  “My parents, they are coming back next weekend. I will ask them. They know everything. If he’s a big enough crook they will know. Or just ask Micheline again. She knows him quite well. She knows the house.”

  “Micheline goes out there?” I asked.

  “Of course, you don’t know that? She used to go out often, she and Jean-Pierre. Then just Micheline.”

  She glanced up to see if I was listening.

  “I think they had an affair,” she whispered.

  That at least helped to explain Micheline’s curious caginess whenever I asked her about le Baron. It did not explain how he got so rich, though, and why he had chosen to live such an isolated life. It always seemed to me a great irony that he would dress so formally out here in this casual little outpost—paisley cravats and pressed trousers, starched shirts, expensive Belgian linen suit, or a houndstooth sport coat with a hint of Savile Row.

  “What do you think of that?” she asked.

  “What, that they had an affair?”

  “Yes.”

  I hesitated. It was interesting. But that kind of thing was no longer shocking to me. I was more concerned with le Baron’s story at that point.

  “You are such a cowboy,” she said before I could answer, “so polite and innocent.”

  Then, suddenly, she kissed me.

  “There,” she said. “Cowboy.”

  “No cowboy,” I spluttered into her cheek.

  “American cowboy,” she said. “Horse.”

  She kissed me again and then tried to push me forward into the water, down into the jeweled sea tangle, among the darting predators and the octopus and the fish scales. As I fell, I turned and grabbed her wrist and dragged her down with me. She fell on top of me, and then, struggling, she grabbed my head, pushed me under, and held me there.

  She was strong for such a small sprite, but she brought me up, kissed me quickly, and then pushed me under once more.

  “Water horse,” she shouted. “Cowboy who cannot swim.”

  I managed to break free, grabbed her waist, lifted her, and skidded her out into the deeper water, and she sank beneath the surface and didn’t come up. Only a silent line of bubbles, the gulls circling above. I could see her down there, a shimmering, glowing form in the blue-green shallows, so I swam over and lifted her out. This time she lay in my arms, limp, not breathing, her mouth open, feigning death. Her tiny silver crucifix was skewed from her chest and lay gleaming against her right shoulder, her dark wet hair was flattened at her temples. Full lips, high cheekbones, she was a Gallic beauty, softened by a thousand years of civilization. But she sprang to life, grabbed my head, pushed me down again, and held me there for a long time, her small hands tightening on the back of my neck every time I tried to rise.

  I too came up dead.

  “Mortu?” she asked in dialect. “Dead?”

  “Si.”

  “Then I will kiss the frog prince to bring him back to life,” she said.

  There followed a soft, evolving kiss.

  This was hardly the embrace of a fairy queen or a virginal Catholic teenager. It was the practiced kiss of a Parisian sophisticate.

  Just before dinner that night two tall, dark-eyed men carrying instrument cases came in the back door of the kitchen and asked if Micheline was around. They were serious types, without the usual ebullience of island people, and once I had directed them to the dining room where Micheline was talking with some clients, they walked off without so much as a nod.

  “Who were they?” I asked Vincenzo.

  “Those are the gypsy musicians. Micheline picked them up in the market yesterday. They’re going to play tonight.”

  The two men were directed to the nook beside the bar—an area usually used only for drinks or light fare. Chrétien was instructed to lay out two settings and once they were in place, Micheline brought them a bottle of vermentinu from one of the Cap Corse vineyards. They drank sullenly, without grace, and talked quietly to each other in some dialect I couldn’t understand.

  All that day Jean-Pierre had been preparing a stifatu. This was a specialty dish, a roll of stuffed meats, prepared from a mix of goat and lamb combined with herbs from the maquis and in some cases locally trapped blackbirds. It was served with grated cheese and was rather time-consuming to prepare. Spotting it on the menu, the regular diners had been ordering the dish, and we were down to the last serving when Micheline scurried in and announced that the gypsies had ordered that particular plate.

  “Too late,” Jean-Pierre said. “I’m just about to send out the last order to one of Chrétien’s tables.”

  “Well, send it to the gypsies. I will tell Chrétien to say there is no more of that dish.”

  “Why should we serve two itinerant gypsies with limited palates one of our finest dishes? Why waste it?” he said.

  “Why not?” she spit. They were about to have one of their rows, I could see, and so I quietly retreated with a load of dirty dishes and began washing. I could hear the argument from the scullery, but I noticed later that the gypsies got their stifatu.

  In spite of the unpleasantness in the back room, out in the dining room and on the terrace things were livening up. A lot of local people had come out along with the usual card sharks, and many bottles of muscat and local rosés were opened and served, and the talk back and forth between the tables was loud and riotous. The place was full; I had vast amounts of dishes and silverware pouring in at me, and had to work furiously to keep up with the flow. I was drenched from the work, and the stone floor of the scullery was slick with grease and bits of rice and peas and fish bones. Toward the end, as I was finishing up the pans, I could hear the music start up, the whiny, sad sound of a gypsy violin.

  Vincenzo came in with my usual glass of marc.

  “Come out soon,” he said. “They’re very good.”

  When I went back to my cabine to get some dry clothes I saw a couple in an embrace up on the promontory. They broke apart quickly when they saw me pass and turned to face the dull red glow of the last of daylight over the western horizon. I tried not to look too closely, but the woman had the same build as Maggs, and the man she was with was a short island type, not her tall, rangy husband. I assumed I was mistaken, and when I came back out to go up to the festivities, they were gone.

  The gypsies were still running through slower numbers when I finally managed to get out to the terrace. In contrast to the two surly individuals who first appeared, they had now transformed themselves. They played mostly American popular tunes from the 1950s. One played the guitar in the chopped, pulsing style of Django Reinhardt, smiling to show two golden teeth. The other played in the jazz fiddle style of Django’s partner Stephane Grappelli, bowing forward at the low notes and rocking back on his heels, head to the sky, on the higher notes. When I got to the terrace, they were working through a slow, Eastern European, gypsy-like lament, the guitar walking along rhythmically, the violin wheeling up to higher registers and then slowly sinking in a sad minor key to its lowest possible range. People at the tables were listening, still finishing desserts and coffee. Others had had their tables cleared and had pushed back their chairs to get a better view of the performers. As the last of the coffees and local ratafias were served, the music began to heat up. A young couple from the town finally could not sit still any longer, pushed their table aside and began to dance. This inspired another couple, then another. And then Micheline eyed me and swung her head to Chrétien, indicating that we should help the customers move some tables aside—something we would do periodically when some pick-up dance band came out from the town. Chrétien and I set to work and cleared a circle in the center of the terrace, and even before we finished our work, people jumped in.

  The island w
omen wore wide, flouncy skirts and peasant blouses in an outmoded style from the 1950s, and the men were dressed in dark trousers and white collared shirts or tight jerseys, although there were a few older locals there who still wore baggy pants, a beret, and a striped sailor’s jersey. Some of the younger people danced the jitterbug, but during the slower numbers they all swept into one another’s arms and danced in the old apache style, leaning into each other, cheek to cheek, legs moving together in a quickstep. The guitar pulsed steadily along with a chug-a-chug dancer’s heartbeat, and the fiddle wound through the night air, jumping in a jagged swing melody from time to time, and surging out over the harbor. It was a still night, a moist night, and I daresay the older townspeople lingering along the promenade that ran along the harbor beside the town square could hear the violin complaining and whining as it shimmered across the bay and mixed with the soft lap of the waters on the rocks.

  The gypsies went on for over an hour with no break, and all the while we pulled big pitchers of beer, cracked open bottles of champagne and prosecco and a sparkling variety of local muscat, and wove among the dancers with laden trays of drink orders. The music chopped onward, the gypsies playing some of the older popular American numbers—“St. Louis Woman” and the “Beale Street Blues.” The Chinese lanterns we had strung around the terrace swayed with the rhythm, chairs tipped over, people sat along the terrace wall in the hot, humid sea air, and we could hardly keep up with the drink orders. There appeared to be no sign of an end to the evening.

  Inside, in the quieter space of the dining room, a few of the regulars, driven indoors by the wild scene on the terrace, were also dancing and drinking, albeit in a far more subdued manner.

  Maggs was there, stepping around the cleared floor with Peter in a stylized English manner. Eugène, the dentist, sat at the bar with Herr Komandante, trying to communicate above the noise in whatever common language they could find; Jacquis was inside too, dancing in the apache style with a very sexy woman in a tight skirt and a low-cut blouse.